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On May 2, Bra Couture KC will hold its 15th annual runway show in the Kansas City Convention Center’s Grand Ballroom.
It’s a night of triumph, inspiration, and boundless generosity. The models are cancer survivors, many sporting bras decorated by Kansas City designers to celebrate their survivorship. Chiefs and Royals accompany them down the catwalk. Guests donate and win tickets, trips, and an ever-expanding list of goodies.
The event provides a major infusion of funds for Bra Couture KC’s day-in, day-out work providing essential cancer care for uninsured and underinsured people in Kansas City. Since the organization’s inception in 2011, it has built two in-hospital cancer care centers in KC, funded several more, and financially assisted people living with cancer but without adequate coverage. To date, Bra Couture KC has helped over 24,000 people with cancer in Kansas City, and its ambitions grow by the day.
We spoke with Sharon Butler Payne, Bra Couture KC’s founder, about the organization’s origins, its growth, and the unparalleled care it provides.
Bra Couture KC’s Beginnings
In 2009, Butler Payne threw a craft night to support a loved one in Austin, Texas, who had survived breast cancer.
“She had a grueling, long, and arduous journey to survive,” says Butler Payne. “And when she went through all of that, we’re here in Kansas City, going down as often as we can, sending food, just trying to figure out how we can be there for that family remotely.”
After completing her treatment, the survivor wanted to give back by opening a cancer resource center. To fundraise, she asked Austin artists—and Butler Payne—to turn bras into art. So Butler Payne gathered up her girlfriends, poured some champagne, and made bras that would eventually appear on an Austin runway.
By 2010, Butler Payne was a breast cancer survivor herself. Out to dinner with a friend at the University of Kansas Cancer Center, she pitched a fashion show like the one in Austin. She received a “yes” and a request: to create a patients-in-need fund for people with cancer and little to no insurance coverage.
“And I was just stunned,” says Butler Payne. “I was thinking, wow, I’m facing my fourth surgery, I haven’t spent anything, and I still won’t spend anything. How could you face breast cancer without insurance? And it just really ignited my passion for that concern.”
She drove to medical centers in underserved communities in Kansas City to spread the word.
“I was thinking, ‘Let’s let them know that there is a center at KU where they can get free wigs, and free prosthetics, and free surgical teddies, and blankets and hats and whatever they might need.”
In the years since, Bra Couture has built or funded seven cancer care centers in the KC metro, and it plans to add four more and spread into rural areas (where cancer death rates are often higher) in 2025. It has expanded to provide care for all cancers and genders.
The Importance of On-Site Cancer Care
To Butler Payne, having cancer care centers inside hospitals is crucial.
“When the center is on site, social workers and nurse navigators can just take the patients down to our center and shave their head and professionally fit them for a wig, or for prosthetics, because Medicaid patients do not get prosthetic surgery,” she says.
Medicaid, Butler Payne stresses, pays for life-saving measures—full stop. It doesn’t provide anti-nausea drugs that help people tolerate their chemotherapy, for instance. Neither do the hospitals. Centers built or funded by Bra Couture KC do.
“I’m not even sure I realized it until another hospital called: We are the single source of cancer care for patients inside of almost all of the hospitals in Kansas City.”
Bra Couture KC 2025
This year’s guest list includes Chiefs players and coaches once again. Auction items routinely include trips to Italy and Spain. This year, guests also can bid for a private jet for six to Nashville, a Pretty Woman private jet experience, signed Chiefs memorabilia, club-level seats to a Chiefs game, and a suite at a Royals game.
Every year, Butler Payne is moved by the survivors on the runway.
“Those survivors come out with hair and makeup, wearing some fun, amazing fashion,” she says. “They’ve lost their hair, they’ve lost their breasts, they’re walking with scars and radiation burns. Coming out on the runway, it gives them that opportunity to feel beautiful again in front of 1,200 cheering guests.”
“What we’re told by the women is, ‘I just felt so diminished, I felt like I lost my femininity, I felt like I lost part of my sexuality, but I realized by walking the runway that I’m a survivor, that I did this, that I can raise my fist and say it.’”
The stories fuel the donations, and after the money is raised?
“We write checks. Beyond operating expenses, we donate every single dollar to patients in need.”
To support Bra Couture KC, get tickets to the event or donate any day of the year.